Again With This: Beverly Hills, 90210

We pick back up where we left off with the last episode: Amanda and Jack, tussling at his house. In the process, Jack ends up flying off a third-story balcony onto the hard floor of the foyer, and since Amanda doesn't think she can call the authorities, she enlists Peter to help her deal with the situation. His scheme to get Jack admitted to the hospital with a minimum of questions from other personnel seems to work, until Michael sees Peter and Amanda leaving Jack's room together and inserts himself. At the same time, Fake Henry keeps pestering Kimberly, while Kimberly keeps pestering Dr. Joyce Brothers on her apparently 24-hour-a-day radio show. Jake can't stop being jealous of the time Jo is spending with Richard, nor Jo of Shelly still hanging around. Hayley and Alison make their relationship official by telling Brooke and Billy they're in love -- but there's yet another level to which Hayley wants to take it. Finally (...in every sense of the word), Matt and his mother bury his dad, leaving them both to

Psychological torture is the order of the day: Brooke harasses Amanda by taking on Jack's new cable company as her latest client, and Jack lets Amanda know that if she tries to take too hard a line against him, he will retaliate by coming after her friends. Meanwhile, Peter tries to walk Kimberly through a therapeutic process that involves apologizing directly to all her bombing victims -- at a party celebrating the fact that she didn't succeed in killing them, no less -- and returning to the laundry room where she planted her explosives. Maybe this would work if it didn't coincide with Michael and Sydney's new project: deploying an actor who kind of looks like Henry to show up and talk to Kimberly the way the "real" Henry used to do. The Hart & Mancini crew, and Jake and Shelly, are now fully snarled up together in a romantic rat king: Jane has written off Jo for snitching on her to Richard while also trying to talk Richard into taking her back; and when Jo misses a loosely defined date with Jake because

Now that Jack's told Amanda he tracked her down so they could officially get divorced, she's eager to get the process completed so that he can leave town; she doesn't even want any of his assets or their community property -- not even that big-ass painting!!! But as he keeps hanging around, she starts to worry that he's going to resume behaving in ways that made her fake her death to flee him in the first place. Elsewhere at D&D, Brooke is so focused on making Alison tell her exactly what's going on with her and Hayley that she's apparently forgotten that she's a VP now and as such has responsibilities she's supposed to fulfill -- like bringing in business. Panicking, she declares that she'll deliver her father's company as a client, forcing her to beg Alison to help her do it. When Hayley actually does come in as a client, however, he makes sure to do it in a way that elevates Alison and humiliates Brooke. Extremely improbably, "the medical board" has judged Kimberly sane enough to be released into Peter

Once Peter brings in a sketch artist to draw a portrait of Henry (fka Schmob) from Kimberly's description, he is determined to find out who he is -- a real person? a stand-in for someone else she knew? Kimberly can't summon the memory, so he calls her mother, who is clearly stricken at the sound of his name, and comes to L.A. to tell Kimberly the whole sordid story. Elsewhere, Peter gets subpoenaed -- along with Michael and Dr. Hobbs -- to testify in Matt's sexual discrimination case. (Once again, we must report, Matt does a poor job respecting lawyers' function in the legal system, including outside courtrooms.) Jack lets Brooke know he's in town, and that he's going to need her to co-operate with him on reuniting with Amanda. She tries to keep everything to herself, but when Billy follows her to a meeting with Jack -- assuming, reasonably, that she's cheating on him -- she actually tells him the truth, for once. At the same time, her father goes around her to Alison, hoping she will join him in breaking up

Since discovering Amanda PAREZI's Florida driver's license, Brooke evidently hasn't stopped thinking about what it could mean and how to use it to her advantage. So when she heads off to Miami to (as far as Billy knows) investigate a commercial real estate investment, she quickly turns up Amanda and Jack's wedding announcement and Jack's home address, where she meets the man himself and determines that his wife, Amanda, died five years ago. Brooke returns to L.A. to extort her way into a better job and there will probably be no further repercussions! At all! Oh, and while she was gone, Billy started to share her suspicions that Alison's eyesight had returned, and got Alison to come clean. Peter confides in Sydney that the reason he's so focused on keeping Kimberly out of detention is that he had a sister who was mentally ill, and was too young to have helped her when she was in crisis. Michael decides the best way to keep Kimberly from being released is to keep riling her up in her cell, and he's got a great

Remember the last episode when Matt punched Paul at the hospital and his lawyer Alicia was like "Please don't" and he was like "Cool, cool," and we thought he understood why such actions would NOT be good for his case? Well, in THIS episode, he's just decided to wire himself up and try to maneuver Paul into confessing to all his crimes so that he can get it on tape. Alicia destroys the first, not-especially-incriminating recording Matt makes, telling him it's inadmissible anyway, and when Matt pushes back, she agrees that she shouldn't represent him anymore. Instead of taking this as a bad sign that he needs to sort himself out, Matt accepts an invitation from Paul to go over to the manse and just talk. Oh, MATT. Jane hires Jo to be Mackenzie Hart's in-house photographer, even boldly inviting Jo and Jake out for a celebratory dinner with Jane and Richard. Somehow, Jane did not foresee Richard using this occasion to bitch at Jane, through Jo, that Jane fired his photographer in order to free up the position fo

Things are starting to get back to normal-ish at the complex: with the place under construction, Amanda has arranged for the tenants in the intact apartments to billet the ones whose apartments were ruined...and invited herself to Sydney's place. This is only one of Sydney's problems this week, however: instead of talking to Jo, the only other person affected by Jess's death, Jake is self-medicating with booze and alienating everyone who loves him -- including Sydney, whom he fires when he judges her insufficiently festive at the bombing survivors' party he throws. Good thing Peter and Michael need a receptionist! Speaking of whom: while Michael remains skeptical of his motives, Peter continues trying to help Kimberly, mostly to no avail: Kimberly won't co-operate with a court psychiatrist's assessment of her sanity, and Amanda refuses his request that she not file stalking charges against Kimberly. Meanwhile, Matt doesn't help his case by confronting Paul at the hospital and punching him in front of a cafete

The Season 4 premiere picks up where the Season 3 finale left off: with Kimberly setting off an explosion at the Melrose Place apartment complex!!! In the immediate aftermath, we kind of just have to sort out who lived and died, but don't worry -- there are way more of the former than the latter. Peter has Kimberly (justifiably) committed to a psych ward; it doesn't seem like Schmob is still bothering her, but she also can't remember her part in the bombing or believe she actually could have done it. Billy and Brooke's marriage gets off to a rocky start when Billy asks to postpone the honeymoon due to, you know, all his friends who are injured -- most notably Alison, who has gone blind. It's probably only temporary, but she doesn't want Billy to know that. Matt is hurt by what he perceives as his parents' lack of support following his arrest on charges of capital murder, but does accept the fancy criminal lawyer they set him up with. Considering how much he hated Jess, and the reason the two of them were figh

Incarcerated at the county jail, Michael gets help from an unexpected visitor: DR. PETER BURNS. Apparently the whole time he's been gone he was just lying low on the advice of his excellent attorney, who's cleared him on all legal charges. Peter does still need to convince the medical board not to pull his license, which is why he's going to bail Michael out: to extort him into extolling Peter's skills as a doctor, which Michael is all too willing to do. (Peter's also romancing Kimberly all of a sudden, but that couldn't be so that she will ALSO vouch for him with the medical board...could it?!) Kimberly's mirror antagonist is also still around, and urging her to do harm to all the people who are trying to destroy her life; she doesn't need much convincing. Billy and Brooke are hurtling toward the altar, telling Hayley they want to hold the ceremony in a matter of days. Amanda is thrilled to be the one to tell Alison, when she phones the agency looking for Brooke, about the engagement. Alison calls Jo to get

Just in case Amanda wasn't fully convinced in the last episode that Michael was stalking her at home, Kimberly ALSO shows up in the parking garage at D&D to creep Amanda out by following her to her car, which Kimberly has also tagged with a gigantic "Die, Bitch" on the driver's side. Amanda then gets on board, threatening Michael herself if he doesn't leave her alone, not knowing that Kimberly intends to trash the beach house, claw up her own face, and entrap Michael for having "beaten" her. But...there's more. Eek. While Alison gets her feet under her in Hong Kong, she's also anxious to find out what Billy thought of the heartfelt letter she gave Brooke to deliver to him, which is why it's too bad that (a) Brooke read and then shredded Alison's declaration of love and (b) wrote another one that basically left it to Billy whether he wanted to stay in her life or not. Jake wakes up in the hospital after surgery entirely convinced that Jess was behind the shooting, and is unimpressed by both Jess's and Jo's

Jake is still not okay with Jess and Jo's burgeoning relationship, so much so that he kicks Jess out and fires him from Shooters -- and, when Jo tries importuning him on Jess's behalf, lets her know he's not interested in seeing or talking to her as long as she and Jess are an item. In retaliation, Jess hits up a local pool hall and picks a fight with some toughs, apparently to determine whether they're up for the job of messing with Little Brother (drink!). Brooke is such a good friend to Alison that she arranges for her to interview for a position at Brooke's daddy's company, which comes with a fat salary, and a surprise: it's at his international headquarters in Hong Kong! Billy is all set to talk Alison out of moving so far from her friends, until Brooke urges him not to get in the way of Alison's career progress. What will he do?! Sydney meets with Jim again and gets a surprise of her own: he's an FBI agent who infiltrated Vince's drug ring and is juuuuust about to make a bust. But he likes her, so he ad

Sydney's gotten approached with a business deal from a couple of guys who just want to use the label to import and sell their pantyhose from China, and who know she used to work for Lauren. What could go wrong?! (You can probably guess.) She also happens to be home for the latest installment of Jess's attempt to bone Jo against every wall in Los Angeles, and since she hears everything on the other side of said wall at her place, she decides it's her place to snitch on them to Jake. Brooke does seem to be enjoying sex with Billy on its merits, but it also has fringe benefits, such as when he almost immediately betrays Alison's confidence and tells Brooke that Alison's On Notice with the D&D board: if she screws up one more thing, she's out. Obviously, she's in the process of screwing up one more thing when Brooke passes this intel on to Amanda, so she barely has to put in any effort to undermine Alison with this one. Kimberly gets the honour of an early graduation from Camp No More Victims after violently

Brooke and Amanda's plot to depose Alison gets a convenient boost when a rep for D&D's latest very important client happens to have a connection to Brooke's father: she's able to leverage what she knows about his past to manipulate Alison into pitching a concept that will, shall we say, not land. Meanwhile, Amanda is ALSO being set upon constantly by Michael, trying to talk her into seeing him again with compliments, begging, threats, and pasta. Kimberly has decided to change her situation by enrolling in an intensive program called No More Victims, which aims to teach her and her fellow boot campers how to regain control of their lives and learn to assert themselves. (We're not sure Kimberly's problem is that she was insufficiently assertive, but...sure!) Sydney approaches Jane with an offer to save the design firm with Sydney's ill-gotten insurance-settlement gains, and Jane is so desperate that she accepts, even on extremely unfavorable terms. And the more Jo tries to resist Jess's advances, the closer

Michael's having a perfectly pleasant evening at home waiting for his wife to hurry up and die already when Sydney unexpectedly shows up and foils his plan. He's so distracted pretending to try to revive Kimberly that he doesn't notice Sydney stealing the suicide note for future blackmail purposes! Once Kimberly is conscious again, Sydney tells her about the scene she walked up on, but Kimberly denies she was trying to die by suicide: she says Michael poisoned her, and that if Sydney will help her plant evidence to that effect and also destroy her note, she'll give Sydney half the insurance settlement. When the cops show up and don't find the suicide note in their search of the beach house, Michael figures out who probably has it. Whom will Sydney be loyal to! Oh yeah: in the midst of all this, Michael also proposes to Amanda. It doesn't go great. Speaking of Amanda: she gets Billy to ask Alison to give her a job at D&D, and it works! Amanda returns with a great attitude even in a position MUCH more junio

As Amanda battles back to consciousness, Michael's got his own fights: Kimberly reveals that she's returned early from Minnesota, she doesn't buy his stories about why Amanda's lingerie is all over the beach house, and he is officially on notice. This just convinces him to accelerate his exit plans, but then Kimberly runs into the city's insurance guy at the hospital before Michael does and takes possession of that big settlement check, forcing Michael to make nice. Meanwhile, Alison continues being a bitch to everyone at D&D except Brooke. And why not -- Brooke is actually useful, offering her dad's palatial estate as a photo shoot location when another one falls through. Having Billy on her literal home turf causes Brooke to escalate her mind games with him, flirting super-hard just before her fiancé shows up. Surprise! Brooke later ends up at the hospital when Billy goes to visit Amanda, and Amanda makes a note. After making peace with Jake, Jess decides to test it by showing up in L.A. unannounced and

The members of D&D's board of directors have taken notice of Amanda's increasing number of absences, and they've decided on a course of action: canning her and installing Alison in her place. It takes less than a day for Alison to learn that part of what made Amanda so surly in the role was the demands of the job. Desperate not to run into Alison, Amanda begs Michael to get her out of the complex, so he sends Kimberly to Minnesota to interview for a job at the Mayo Clinic so that Amanda can stay at the beach house in her absence. At the same time, Michael's also running a scam on the city, claiming the car accident five million episodes ago was caused by dangerous road conditions. He's close to a settlement, but Kimberly knows nothing about the lawsuit and is signing a bunch of papers he hands her without reading them because, apparently, she's forgotten...everything about her husband. Jake gets a call from an old friend in Washington State: Jake's mother has died, and he's stressed about going back and f

Amanda and Michael are back from New York and navigating their new circumstances. Kimberly tells Michael she knows he and Amanda shared a room. Amanda doesn't think their dalliance should get in the way of her treatment. And yet...this guy does enough fancy footwork to get himself and Amanda to a resort in Santa Barbara AND Kimberly's sign-off. Amanda leaves Alison in charge of submitting D&D's paperwork to the Century Advertising Awards, and even okays Alison to "let it slip" that Amanda may be dying, just in case that shifts any votes her way. But when Alison gets there, she meets the charming coordinator, Brooke Armstrong (Kristin Davis!), who easily talks Alison into submitting her own account against Amanda's in the same category. Having tried and failed to talk Jane out of dating Jake, Sydney manufactures a situation at a rough bar from which Jake will be forced to extricate her. But will this succeed in pushing them closer together? You can't lose by listening to our podcast on "And The Winner Is..

Amanda having entrusted her treatment to Michael, the two of them head to New York so that they can doorstop the famous Dr. Steele and convince him to admit Amanda into his cancer study. But it's going to be hard once Kimberly calls Dr. Steele first and defames Michael, claiming his ultimate goal is to undermine Steele's study and get himself set up with one on the same treatment plan instead. And that's just the disaster Amanda knows about: she has no idea that, back in L.A., Alison and Billy are eating shit from a disgruntled client, who demands a brand-new campaign with one day's turnaround. After that pitch also fails to impress him, Alison tries one last gambit: a sob story, and not her own. Things are devolving quickly in Rawlings's police brutality case. Jo knows all too well what happens to civilians who try to challenge police power, and only gets more terrified about what could happen to her after Rawlings's victim dies. Matt volunteers to turn her photos over to the Internal Affairs detective and k

Once Sydney gets to see daylight again, she assesses her options and decides to stay at the compound. Martin takes this as proof that he's broken her, apparently, because he shows her where they keep the Abbot Way arsenal and starts right in on small arms training. What they don't know is that, back in L.A., Jane's been doing some research on Martin, figured out he's bad news, and convinced Jake to come with her to the compound to try to break Sydney out. Amanda has started chemotherapy, but is (of course) a terrible patient who refuses to acknowledge the physical toll it's going to take on her and adjust her working life in any way. As she leans more and more on Michael, Kimberly gets more and more suspicious. When Rawlings stalks Matt to Shooters and corners him into an introduction to Jo, he volunteers to be her chaperone while she shoots some of the seedier L.A. street life for a newspaper. But when he gets a call about a drug dealer, Jo gets a little too curious, and finds out what Kimberly already knew:

Though Amanda has apparently spent the entire time since we saw her last trying to ignore what Michael told her about the lump in her neck, he is refusing to let up, and another doctor at the hospital confirms his findings: Amanda does have Hodgkin's Disease. She resists Michael's forcible attempts to continue necessary testing, bitches out everyone who steps in her path at the office, but finally confides in Billy, swearing him to secrecy. Is this a confidence he can keep -- even from Alison, as Amanda expressly specifies? HMMM. Rikki gets Sydney out to the desert to a "retreat" with the rest of the Abbot followers, which apparently does not at all live up to the picture Rikki had painted of a resort-like experience. Sydney is sketched out when her assignment to perform the "tea service" exposes her to Martin, in bed with two ladies, and even more put off the next day when Martin orders his acolytes to write to their families asking for money. Sydney tells him she wants to leave, and he assures her she may..